Spin Cycle
by Ysavvryl
Summary: He's supposed to wash himself now, but he doesn't fit into the washing machine anymore. Post-canon.


**Spin Cycle**

"My name is Teddles."

They had tried to be polite, for Eri's sake. But there were some snickers and hidden smiles. "I was really little when I named him," Eri said, already pink in the face.

"We could call you Ted," Yeonho had said.

Now that he remembered his name, he remembered something that she had told her grandfather. "It's because teddy bears are for cuddles, so his name is Teddles."

"That sounds like a name for a real sweetheart," he had said.

"He really is," Eri said, hugging him tight.

She would also hug him tight after he'd been washed. Her mother often had to distract her to put him through the washer and dryer. That sloshy darkness of soap and water, buffeting him about with shirts and socks, followed up by a dry darkness tumbling him about over and over… was it worse than the darkness of the closet, forever still and closed? Not at all, since the laundry darkness would end and she would say that he smelled nice.

And now Ted needed to be washed again, as Yuri thought he stunk. He didn't fit in the washer like this and Tei had given him a blank look when he asked where the pillowcases for washing were. That's how one got washed right? Tied up in a pillowcase and put through the washer. If he curled up, he could fit in the dryer still. But that wouldn't be good without being washed first.

BZZZZZZT!

Tensing, Ted blinked and realized that he'd fallen asleep in front of the washer. He was just going to rest while waiting on the dryer, not sleep. Since it had woken him up, he opened up the dryer door and pulled out a pillowcase. A few white feathers tumbled out when he opened the case up and took out his teddy bear body. He'd been trying to patch it up, including replacing his missing eye just this morning. But it already was loose. Old stitches were hanging on, his new stitches weren't as secure, and there were more patches where one could see white through the brown threads.

"I see washing was a mistake again," he grumbled, stroking one of the threadbare portions. It was soft and warm, unlike his cold human hands. He felt lighter than normal then, almost too weak to hold up his own body. In another time, in an unwise decision, Ted recalled what would happen to those ball-jointed dolls if their bodies were broken. But they were newer, meticulously constructed, and quite healthy in their human forms even if some were scarred from their time as dolls.

He was an old bear, perhaps not meant to last past one childhood. Gingerly, Ted moved the patch he kept over his previously missing eye. He could see there now, feel that he had an eye. But if he closed his good eye, the world became a blurry haze of color. He knew there was a broom nearby, but couldn't make it out from its surroundings. Not good enough. With a sigh, he put the patch back and hugged his bear self.

What would happen to him when this fabric failed and the stuffing came tumbling out of him?

How long did he have with this strange human body?

And how was he supposed to wash this human body so whatever problematic smell wasn't a problem?

There was a feeling that came from hugging his old self down: reassurance. Things would be okay. The world might be scary and strange past what he knew in Eri's hands, but as long as he had his old self, he would be okay somehow. At least, until the old body fell apart. But right now, it was okay, even though he had to be alone in the old house while the others were at school. Eri would come back.

Next to him, the dryer's door thumped softly as it shut itself. Right, this chore had to be done. Ted tucked his old self under his arm and followed Tei's written instructions on how to do laundry. What was that doll's true self? Cruel or kind? Ted knew what Tei was capable of if he lost restraint. But he was outwardly good and that side seemed to be winning. At any rate, Tei had assigned Ted a number of chores to keep himself occupied since they did not think he could be accepted to Eri's school.

He found himself tired again after sorting and folding the dried clean clothes. Ted placed stacks of the clothes in the proper rooms, including his own in the living room with Yeonho's clothes. Lastly, he placed Eri's clothes away in her dressers since she didn't always put them away herself. Then he plopped down on her bed and set his old self on the pillow to face it. Just as she had, long ago.

"Still not supposed to be here," he mumbled to his old self. That had been disappointing to learn. She used to bring him everywhere, but then school came along, the mother thought it was best to put him out of sight… and now that they were grown, being a boy and a girl meant that they couldn't be everywhere together. There were boundaries to be had, things that just weren't proper.

Ted tried to figure out the sense of it. She had told him that they'd be together forever. After that had turned untrue and the years passed on, he had grown bitter about it. But they were back together now. Just, she had other dolls in her life now, ones who were also human. Eri also had other friends that Ted had never seen, although he'd heard plenty about them. She had other responsibilities outside this house; she had a whole life out there that she was growing fonder of day by day. For him, though, his life was still in this house.

"I wouldn't survive outside the house," Ted said, looking over his old self. In his experience, outside was dangerous. There were many ways to get dirty and torn out there, from dogs with large teeth to sidewalks with mud puddles. Not to mention the people out there. If it was difficult enough for him to comprehend the people he was living with, those outside the house had to be even stranger. Although, there were some wonders outside that he'd like to see again.

If he felt better. He closed his eyes, feeling the familiar softness of the blanket there. It was old too, possibly older than Eri was. Despite being another work of fabric, it was holding together better than him. Maybe his maker hadn't particularly cared about him. Ted didn't remember that much from his days before meeting Eri: being unpacked from a crate, sitting on a shelf with other bears like himself, his first sight of an old man that would soon become one of two people that Ted knew. Maybe it was something a miracle that a mass-production doll like himself had a soul. Maybe Eri's grandfather had seen that in him right away, as he had picked him.

But what now? Ted hated the old closet; he was grateful that he was out of there even if things were difficult. Different. But, what would happen should he fall apart beyond any repair? He'd seen images on TV of a junkyard, deep piles of long forgotten things baking under the sun. Would he be doomed to a place like that, snacked on by flies and moths as his cotton and feathers eroded away? Or, there was an expanse of nothing outside the little world he had made. Ted saw it in his dreams sometime, the empty nothing dissolving his world away. Even the carousel was foggy, its music growing faint as it continued to turn. Maybe he was doomed to spend forever in this fogginess, shadows of his dreams and memories growing fainter until he too was nothing.

"No, I control this place," he insisted. "Come back to me. Maybe she'll change her mind; maybe she'll decide this simpler world is better. Stay! I won't fade to nothing, I won't. I was forgotten and nameless, but she's remembered. I will not lose that!"

The silent fog was unheeding.

"I don't want to lose it," Ted said, his voice faltering as a chill pervaded his soul. "Go away! I don't want to be lost in nothing. Everything's changed, even Eri, but at least I'm back with her. I don't want to lose what I have." He clung to the carousel's pole, only to feel a rough rust was growing there. Even the carousel would get old and break down. Even he…

BZZZZZT!

"Mmph?" He blinked and found that he'd fallen asleep, again. The dryer was off in another room, but its insistent buzzer still woke him. Now feeling heavy, Ted slid off the bed and onto his feet, straightening up the blanket so it wasn't as obvious. Then he grabbed his old body and headed off to do the next round of laundry.

The clock told him that it was getting dangerously close to when the others might come back from school. That usually made him impatiently cheerful, waiting for them (mostly Eri) to get home. However, he still hadn't managed to wash his human self. The others generally used the shower in the bathroom for that purpose. Ted should go figure that out.

Bringing a teddy bear into the bathroom was a good way to get it sopping wet, he remembered. Reluctant, he set his old self on a shelf outside the room before going in. Close the door because the others did, and then… what now? The washing machine was simple to understand: measure out the soap to add to it slot, put the dirty clothes (and occasional bear) in the tub, shut the lid, make sure the settings were right, then press the button to start. There was no start button in here, and there were more than two soaps to choose from.

How had the other dolls known what to do here? When they had woken up, they had known normal life skills like cooking and cleaning. They'd even known enough to join school without large gaps of ignorance. Ted wasn't sure how to do much. He could make tea and set a table since he'd watched Eri do that for him. Thankfully, he knew how to read already and could follow Tei's notes to do other things. But there hadn't been notes on how to wash himself.

He picked out a bottle and looked over the instructions. After-shave lotion, to condition and soothe skin after shaving… that didn't seem right. Ah, there, body soap… place soap on damp cloth or sponge, knead into a foamy lather, rub over skin, and then rinse, also avoid contact with eyes, not intended for hair. What did he do for the hair? That took… shampoo. Wet hair, massage shampoo into hair, rinse out, use with matching conditioner for best effect. And the conditioner… after shampooing, massage into hair and scalp, leave for thirty seconds, then rinse out. It seemed like a lot of steps for manual cleaning. But that's what the others did often, especially Yuri. Ted could do this.

There was a dial that operated the shower, still no simple push to start. But there was a small note on the large knob to pull on it to turn on the water. After a second, the water spurted out with a hard chill that was much too like the fog. Shifting the knob towards red heated it up, enough to be painful on his skin. Why did it go that hot? After fiddling back and forth, Ted found a comfortable warmth to step into. Then it should be following all these instructions, which had a strange lack of spinning in them. Wasn't that part of how the machine worked to clean? Even the dishwasher had a spin cycle.

Since the body wash had to be rubbed on his skin, he'd taken his clothes off for this. That was the right way, he hoped. He knew his bandages should come off even though that sent the water beating over the sensitive parts of his body. Unexpectedly, it didn't really hurt. The shower actually felt good now that he had the temperature figured out. The soaps smelled different than laundry soaps, but they left a gentle pleasantness in the air. Maybe this was more complicated, but it was much better then being tied up in a pillowcase and thrown in a machine.

There was one thing the bottles hadn't mentioned: how to get dry now that he was clean. Ted shut off the water and considered the problem. In the dryer, the dry heat and tumbling got rid of the water. The air in here was damp, fogging up the mirror over the sink. When he washed his hands, he used a towel to dry them off. That towel was too small to dry off his whole body, though. The large towels were outside of the bathroom; he should have brought one in before he started.

As he realized that embarrassing mistake, there was a knocking on the door. "Hey, are you about done in there?" Tei asked. "I need to head off to work shortly."

"Yes," Ted called, wondering if he should ask for a towel to be brought in. He could possibly use the smaller towels in here if he could shake off the excess water. Maybe this was where spinning would help speed things along.

He regretted that almost immediately when everything became a whirling blur. Even his mind was spinning much faster than he thought his body was. Then the shower floor slipped from underneath his feet and right in front of his eyes before it all went black.

The nothing outside his world was white. The nothing that he found himself in now was black. Ted's mind still whirled around, now throbbing with pain. Perhaps this was why Eri became sick on the dream carousel. Forms began to emerge, dark gray among the black. What was going on? The hum of electronics came from nearby; something pricked in his skin under new bandages. And his clothes felt strange, cool and plastic that covered without being snugly wrapped. Hadn't he been nude? Yet he was dry, and cold, and weak…

The forms grew brighter, clearing up. But, this wasn't home. It was a place of white that he'd never seen before. And the people by him were complete strangers. Where was Eri? Maybe in the blurry half of his vision? Or had he been abandoned to an even stranger place? Something covered his face, filled with a strange scent.

Before long, one of the strangers gripped his hand. "It's fine, we're taking care of you," he said gently. "You'll be asleep, so you won't notice anything."

But he still had laundry to finish, and Eri was supposed to be home soon. He should be home. Still, there was a spark of comfort from the stranger's grasp. Not quite the same as hugging his old body, but it was enough for Ted to accept that he was growing tired again. Maybe he'd feel better from a proper sleep and not these little unintentional naps. He closed his eyes and the unfamiliar place faded away.

A phone rang, startling him. No, he'd been expecting this call. Hoping for it. Ted got up and retrieved the phone from Eri's desk. He wasn't supposed to be in her room, but he was the only one home now. "Hello Eri."

"Hi Teddles!" she said happily. "How are you doing today?"

He really wanted to say that he missed her, but he didn't want her to worry over him. "I'm fine; things are going as normal. How about you?"

"I'm a little tired; a lot has been happening. But it's all coming together now." Then she started talking to him as usual, about names of people he hadn't seen, about things he only knew of because she told him about them, about places he'd never see. Like with his bad eye, it all became a blur of things he didn't really understand. But they meant a lot to her.

"I wish you'd come home," he eventually blurted out when she gave him a moment.

"I'd like that too, but I'm sorry," she said. "I'm limited on what I could do at home. You'll understand someday."

"But I don't understand now," Ted said. "Why do you have to be away?" The scene outside was growing foggy and white. "Why can't I be with you for always, like you promised? I know my body is old and threadbare so we have to be really careful. But, what's going to happen to me? Why can't you be here? What's going to happen to me if I fall apart when you're not here?"

"Teddles…" Eri sounded so sad, and regretful. She wasn't going to return things to how they had once been. "I was a kid who didn't understand any better. And you now…"

"I don't understand," he said, hot tears flowing down his cheeks. "The other boys all left too, not to being forgotten but to finding more of the world than our home. More than our family. But why am I still here, without any of you? Am I going to be alone again, in a worse place where you can never reach me?"

And there was no wizard this time around to bring about miracles.

But there was something that made his tears blur everything into a half-awake haze. Clumsily, he reached up to rub his tears away. Half his vision cleared, revealing a white room with lots of cabinets. Part of it was blocked off with a blue curtain in the middle of the room. He was in an odd bed that had rails on the sides, tied up to computers which monitored him. His old body was there, sitting on a nearby table. For a few moments, the strange place didn't make sense. Then he realized, he was in a hospital.

Ted reached over for his old body, but it was out of reach. Maybe it was the wires in his arm. Then a nurse came in to check on him and let him know things. They had to stitch up his forehead from his slip in the shower, just like his old body needed stitches from a lot of incidents. On top of that, they thought he was severely anemic. He'd woken up briefly before they'd given him a blood transfusion. But unless they could infuse his old body with more feathers and keep it from spilling out, the new blood in this body would only do so much.

The nurse fetched a book for him to read; it was the day after his slip, so Eri and the others were all in school again. It was a child's book about stuffed animals that lived in a forest, something he wouldn't pick up himself. Still, it was nice to pass time with. He wondered if Yeonho or Eri would like it. The others were less likely to be interested, probably.

After he'd read through the first few pages, a doctor came in to visit him. "The color's come back to your face, good," she said, putting a hand on his cheekbone to look into his uncovered eye. "How do you feel?"

"Weak like I can't do much," he said. "My head still hurts."

"It will for a while, since your body over there is rather frail," the doctor said, gesturing over to the teddy bear.

Even in his state, Ted realized how strange that was. "Huh, you know that already?"

She nodded. "I heard from the emergency staff that the fellow who brought you in insisted on leaving it with you, then I noticed that you have identical scars to the bear. The eye patches in particular were a major sign even though it could have been an attempt to understand such problems with a doll." Then she gestured to her own face, drawing a line down the middle. "And to those who know, signs of magic are not difficult to find. I was able to identify you and the bear as the same being."

"Are you another wizard?" Ted asked. "I've met one, but he said they were rare."

"No, not me," she said. "I've had the wrong kind of education to use magic effectively, but learned of its existence all the same. But you said you met a male wizard?"

"Yes, outside normal space when I was only a teddy bear."

The doctor gave his eye another look. "Have you met a female magic user? Because the magic in you is distinctly feminine in origin."

Since she already knew, Ted said, "Maybe my owner, but she doesn't study magic. She's a normal high school student."

"It's not always obvious, or even known by the user," she said. "Still, she must have extraordinary talent to bring out the soul of a teddy bear and give you a human self like this. Finding the rare soul of a doll and then giving it form is quite a challenge, and that's if the doll has a human appearance."

"There are some others like me with her, but they were ball-jointed dolls," he admitted. "But our bodies are connected, right? What could be done with my old body in this shape? How long can I last, like this?" He was trying not to cry, but the fog frightened him.

"To be honest, that's hard to say," the doctor said. "I would need to meet your owner, to figure out if she was the one to grant you this life and how much power she has. Your existence is a miracle, and to ensure you a long life would require another. Specifically, we need to make you a new body as a teddy bear, get your soul to accept it as yours, and get her to accept the new bear as you."

"Why would that require a miracle?" Ted asked. He was pretty sure that if he handed her a new bear and said that was him, Eri would accept it.

"For the same reason any magic fails more often than not: doubt. See, magic is frail when faced with logic. That's why someone like me, trained scientifically as a doctor, has difficulty with magic even though I know of its existence and how it works. Those who use magic, such as that wizard you met, must learn to do so instinctually so that their doubts in what is possible do not interfere. For instance, I know that it's possible to lift a brick with levitation magic; I've seen it done. But my mind is logical and it knows that a brick should not move on its own. It would take a tremendous effort on my part to mentally eliminate that logic in order to lift a brick through magic." She put a hand on his head. "Accepting a new body requires eliminating the logic that it's not sensible. You might believe in it and wish it to be true, but a slight doubt in either you or your owner will render it false."

He nodded. "I see. I was told that miracles will respond to the effort you put into it. Every piece must be collected properly to make it work." That was why his reunion with Eri required multiple timelines to have gone in precise manners, and then she still had to remember his name to unite the times and bring him out of the closet.

"That is true," she said. "Do you know how to sew?"

"I've been trying," he said, gesturing to his old self. "I got my eye back, but not well."

Careful, the doctor picked it up. "To transfer yourself to a new doll body, you must be willing to change more than just physically. Pardon me for saying so, but this is a child's toy. You can never grow beyond a child's mind if this is what your soul is tied to. That may not seem bad, but it will leave you dependent on others and prone to more accidents like this. You will need to find within yourself what it means to grow up and change. By infusing that wisdom within a teddy bear you sew yourself, you can let yourself change bodies as a child changes to an adult. I've checked on a case where this has happened before, along with another where the doll refused to change. The latter caused many troubles as her owner grew up and tried to live an adult's life."

Like how he'd forever be stuck to the old house when everyone else moved on in the world. "Change? Things have already changed greatly around me even though I waited patiently for many years to return to how things were. I thought I should always be the same, for her, always her friend and confidant. But, she grew up. She is more careful and thoughtful than she once was. But, I'm not sure how I should change, or if I can."

"But you're scared of what will happen to you if you can't change, even just physically here," she said, patting the teddy bear's head. Then she patted his head. "I can tell. Consider this, though: you've been given a miraculous opportunity to live and be with her as more than just something she owns. Your world can grow immensely if you are willing to move beyond the past. You can even become a person you would never dream of yourself being now. Is it better for you to be her doll that never changes, or her friend who broadens her world even more?"

"I don't know," Ted said. He should be there for her if she needed him, as always. But did he want to be forever waiting?

"You have some time to think, as long as you take good care of yourself," the doctor said, setting the teddy bear back on the table. "I'll do so more research into what's needed for this transferal. We still need to monitor you, but your friends will be able to visit later. Even though it's not the direct problem, I'll give you some advice on how to deal with anemia so you can keep alert enough to be sewing."

In the afternoon, Eri was the first to come visit him. She was still in her uniform and had to set her school bag aside. "What happened to you? I was really scared when Tei said he had to take you to the hospital."

"Yuri said I needed a shower," Ted said. "I wasn't sure how that worked, but I figured it out up until I needed to dry off. That's when I slipped. Unfortunately, that's not the problem." He then explained about how he needed to remake his body.

While she was listening, she picked up his old self. "That makes sense. I'm sure you can handle it, just practice a lot before you make your next body."

"Of course, I'll have to make it great," he said, although he worried about the changes that could come.

Eri didn't buy his attempt at being unconcerned. "Does something worry you about this plan?"

While he was glad that she accepted the plan, he felt like he had some idea of how this was going to work out. It happened with her parents to her, and seemed to be happening with her to him. It wasn't fair. But, children grew up and changed. It seemed he should as well. "It's just this book," he tried to excuse it. "It's dumb."

"I thought that was a famous book," she said, glancing down at it in his lap. "I haven't read it myself; it'd be a little embarrassing to read now, but it is supposed to be good."

"It's about a stuffed bear that lives in the woods for some reason, not with his owner," Ted said. "The boy said at one point that he'd never forget about his bear and they would always be friends even when he was a hundred years old. But that's rubbish."

"Well, the boy probably felt that was going to be true," Eri said, a little uncomfortable. "But no one can see into the future for certain, and kids only know a very small part of the world."

"Right," he said, now uncomfortable with the subject himself. There he went again, being hurtful when he shouldn't be. Ted didn't want to be someone who caused Eri pain, not really. But even now, there was a vindictive little voice in him that egged him on. Maybe a part of growing up was learning to shut up voices like that. "Though I guess, if this kind of book was around to remind them of such promises, it'd be less likely for them to forget."

"Right, that's why I keep journals," Eri said. "Then you can remember what you felt when you read back over them. Although, it's strange that mine has entries from times I didn't live in. I clearly wrote them, but…"

"You did live those times," Ted said. "I'm sorry."

"I don't blame you, I'm just trying to figure out what to make of all this," she said.

And what to do since all of them were in love with her now, Ted thought. He wanted her to choose him of course. But, perhaps what mattered was that she should be happy with whatever she chose and not regret things. "But you have us as your family now, so it will be fine."

Eri did smile at that. "Yeah."

"I guess, I have you and the others as family too," he said. "It'll help, as, well, the doctor says that transferring myself to a new bear could change me. Like, growing up. That part is scary."

"You've already changed for the better," she said. She did remember being in their world with him, even though it hadn't happened to this Eri directly. She said it was like a bad dream. "I'm sure you can grow up to be a good person if you keep trying. Although we should ask one of the other boys to teach you to properly shower and other things like that."

Ted ended up smiling at that. "Yeah, so I won't be trouble like this again. But Eri? Even if we both change more, even if we make more friends, will you still be my friend at least, even a hundred years from now?"

"Of course, I promise," she said without hesitation, a warm glow to her smile that made her look especially beautiful. "You were my first friend, and I hope we can always be friends no matter what happens to us. I'll write it down in my journal and underline it to make sure it doesn't get forgotten."

Somehow, that promise made his bitterness melt away, just like that hug had when she found him again. Maybe it didn't matter if he wasn't her boyfriend, Ted thought. Because this felt just right.


End file.
